It is
difficult to find words to express the sheer horror of the attack on the Army
Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan. Killing helpless children is perhaps the
lowest to which people who call themselves freedom fighters and holy warriors
can descend to.
Our
immediate task is to step up security in our own schools, especially the ones
in the Jammu area, many run for army families living in the numerous
cantonments there. In such areas, military facilities are well defended and
secured, but residential quarters and schools barely figure in the security
plans. It may be recalled that in May 2002, terrorists did breach a military
residential area in Kaluchak, near Jammu and killed some 18 family members and
10 civilians and 3 army personnel. The dead included 10 children.
The uncle and cousin of injured student Mohammad Baqair (centre), comfort him as he mourns the death of his mother who was a teacher at the school which was attacked by the Taliban.
In
September 2013, three terrorists in camouflage uniforms breached the
international boundary in the Kathua district in Jammu and attacked a police
station and killed four policemen and two civilians. They then hijacked a truck
and reached an army camp in neighbouring Samba district, where they shot six
unarmed army personnel, along with a Lieutenant Colonel. Some reports at the
time said that the terrorists were looking for an army school and after failing
to find it, hit the armoured unit, which was on the main road.
You can
imagine what would have been the consequence of such an attack it would have
definitely led to an Indian military retaliation and possible escalation to
war. Fortunately, that did not happen. But now that scenario has played itself
out in the country which has had no hesitation in repeatedly sending killers,
who call themselves Fedayeen, cross into our borders to kill indiscriminately.
In the
case of Mumbai in 2008, Pakistani terrorists killed people who were of another
faith, but here, the extremist Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) killed their
own. This is the insane logic of the violent Islamic extremism. The Pakistani
deep state, which nourishes the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, and allows a Hafiz Muhammad
Sayeed and his ilk to propagate hatred against India on the basis of religion,
should at least now understand and take down the monster they have created. But
that won’t happen and you will soon hear suggestions that India was behind the
attack because it is they who have nurtured the TTP through the Afghan
intelligence.
The
terrorists who killed the Pakistani school children claim that they have done
their horrifying deed in response to attack on their women folk and children by
the Pakistan Army’s operations against the TTP. While there is absolutely no
justification for killing innocents who had nothing to do with the Pakistan
Army operations, there is need to understand some of the context. The Pakistan
Army’s tactics involves using air power and heavy artillery against the elusive
guerrillas. Such attacks, more often than not, kill a large number of civilians
and have led to the displacement of lakhs of people. Even the so-called
precision drone strike campaign of the Americans has killed over 500 civilians
along with some 2,000 militants.
Over the
years, the Pakistan Army has had an on-again, off-again policy of dealing with
the militancy in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (the erstwhile North West Frontier
Province) area. Operations began in the area in 2002 as part of the American
action in Afghanistan. But the Pakistan Army targeted the Arab, Chechen, Uighur
and Uzbek elements, even while trying to make peace with the Pashtun tribes and
leaders like Baitullah Mehsud.
The
carefully calibrated Pakistani strategy was to allow the Afghan Taliban to
recover and undermine the American-led effort to stabilise Afghanistan. Among
their proxies were the Haqqani network along with several other tribal leaders
like Hafiz Gul Bahadar and Maulvi Nazir whose militancy was focused on
Afghanistan. Both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban say that Mullah Omar is
their leader, but in October a number of leaders declared that they were
pledging their allegiance to the Islamic State.
Islamabad’s
strategy went awry when angered by the heavy-handed Pakistan Army attacks,
Baitullah formed the TTP in 2007 and declared war on Islamabad. But since
Baitullah’s death in a drone strike in 2009, the TTP has fragmented into
several groups, the most prominent being led by Maulana Fazlullah, who is from
Swat.
In 2009,
pushed by the US and by the fall of Swat to the militants, the Pakistan army
launched Operation Rah-e-Nijat and took control of South Waziristan. But all
the key militant leaders managed to escape to Afghanistan or to North
Waziristan. Despite enormous American pressure, the Pakistan army refused to
take up phase two of the operation in North Waziristan.
It was
only this June, after attempts of the Nawaz government to negotiate with the
TTP failed, and the latter not only killed 23 Pakistani soldiers in their
captivity, but also launched the audacious attack on Jinnah airport in Karachi,
that the army began its Operation Zarb-e-Azb which is still continuing. This
operation which has the support of almost all the Pakistani leadership, barring
the Jamaat-e-Islami, has been the direct cause of the school massacre on
Tuesday. But even now it is not clear just how the Pakistanis are dealing with
their proxies like the Haqqanis. In any case, the policy of “good” and “bad”
Taliban remains since the Afghan Taliban, including their leader Mullah Omar
continue to be provided shelter by Islamabad.
The Pakistani
offensive may have been just too late. Because today, violent Islamic extremism
has spread across the country, and is not something that can be tackled by the
army alone. Such is the situation that the world has almost given up on
Pakistan. But this tragedy could be the opportunity for Islamabad and
Rawalpindi to make that strategic shift away from using violent Islamic
extremists against its neighbours.
Mid Day December 17, 2014
It
is difficult to find words to express the sheer horror of the attack on
the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan. Killing helpless children
is perhaps the lowest to which people who call themselves freedom
fighters and holy warriors can descend to. - See more at:
http://www.mid-day.com/articles/the-insane-logic-of-violence/15847160#sthash.f7xM2Elo.dpuf
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